By Simon Abah
Clotho made Donald Trump president of the United States but Trump devalued Clotho’s help in elevating him to the presidency and he paid the supreme price. It was Aeschylus the playwright who wrote: “When the gods send evil, one cannot escape it.”
Small wonder, many retired generals rallied round John Biden and even the widow of John McCain, a Republican, openly endorsed Joe Biden. War veterans in America are a powerful lobby group and a wise president should know better than to disrespect them, Trump did so once too many. I didn’t blame Cindy. I remembered Trump mocking Senator John McCain and derided him for his service to the United States.
How can a president who never went to war, never took a bullet, and was never in the military say such about a military officer who was tortured no-end by the Vietnamese as POW during Vietnam War? In the old era, he might not have been elected without military service to the country. Donald Trump saw John McCain’s Cancer as a place of punishment; he acted as men of straw do. What he failed to answer was the magnitude of the crime committed by John McCain.
In 2016, Donald Trump was gifted the presidency because the American people didn’t want the Clintons to come back. Just that, but he assumed falsely that he became president on his own merit.
Trump refused to learn from history. Richard Nixon thought he could win a war with the press; he was wiser after the event. The media networks made him pay for his bad conduct with Water Gate. No-man has been able to win a war with the press. The love lost between Trump and the press made it easier for the latter to discredit any vestige of fraud, as alleged, by Trump, in the mail-in ballots which favoured the Democrats and Joe Biden, and they made sure he didn’t get a second term. The Associated Press can make and destroy a president. And the press made sure he got his just deserts. I wondered how Trump hoped to supervise a country without the help of New York Times, CNN, Washington Post and many others to polish his image and accomplishments, and yet relied only on the sacrosanctity of Fox News.
How can a president of a great country, constantly, without fail and, without proof mouth a campaign of lies against mail-in ballots allowed by law and supervised by qualified people? America suddenly became a Third World country. His cheekiness about mail-in ballots was the reason GOP voters preferred in-person voting on election day, if only he had not discouraged them, perhaps, he might have won. A president should support veterans and without research, I think he is the only president in America’s history to discredit war veterans.
Small wonder, many retired generals rallied round John Biden and even the widow of John McCain, a Republican, openly endorsed Joe Biden. War veterans in America are a powerful lobby group and a wise president should know better than to disrespect them, Trump did so once too many. I didn’t blame Cindy. I remembered Trump mocking Senator John McCain and derided him for his service to the United States.
How can a president who never went to war, never took a bullet, and was never in the military say such about a military officer who was tortured no-end by the Vietnamese as POW during Vietnam War? In the old era, he might not have been elected without military service to the country. Donald Trump saw John McCain’s Cancer as a place of punishment; he acted as men of straw do. What he failed to answer was the magnitude of the crime committed by John McCain.
People everywhere seem to bow to forces of secular humanism, including President Trump. Those who had the luxury and freedom to enjoy their parents’ wealth and who never served country in the armed forces make light of his military records. The question that begs asking is: how many people fit as a fiddle, even Donald Trump, the president of the United States have served country as much as the late Senator McCain? John McCain was cosmopolitan and worked along bipartisan lines even as a Republican and had friends from all walks of life. Trump appears to be a dramatic president, and enjoys shock tactics for its sake instead of providing real governance, immodest without affecting humanity positively.
Those kinds with love for pleasure and, more pleasure and who cannot be happy until they buy bigger and better things, without the performance of good deeds, to anyone, forgetting that wealth flies but a good name does not. Senator John McCain’s legacy and name surely outlives him and offers him his share of immortality. Trump was not interested in dealing with both houses of Congress on a bi-partisan manner. He refused to be an adult. A president should be one for all not for a few and for the good of country not self and party. For the first time in America’s history, her foreign policy was a mess. It was hard to get a clear-cut direction of America’s foreign policy. Where did the United States stand in her policies with the European Union, the United Kingdom? No allies. No need making unnecessary enemies, Trump had too many and these enemies united against him. I was sad to see President Trump make light of the Coronavirus when it first broke in China; he said it was a hoax. Today, citizens of the United States are paying for his carelessness with deaths and many more would die in the coming days. He downplayed the importance of his constituencies. Some lives mattered more than others. He didn’t campaign vigorously to get votes of African-Americans, Hispanics, Arabs and Evangelicals; these votes, however small, are important and a politician should strive to get them. But Trump believed in White supremacy movement and sought White votes forgetting that Democrats also have White voters. He went against international order and thought he could survive. He should have engaged China, the European Union, instead of rushing to impose sanction on them for annoying activities. It was Abraham Lincoln who said: “God has made us the hope of mankind,” and I believe it to be true. Donald trump lost the presidential election because he destroyed the manifest destiny of the founding fathers of the United States.
Abah, a teacher, speaker, campaigner and consultant, wrote from Abuja, Nigeria